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The Efficacy of Investigative Reporting by Dan Bieger


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Harry didn't speak the language meaning he must hire an interpreter. The central mountains tended to be fairly representative mountains meaning they had little in the way of improved roads requiring Harry to learn to ride the local beast of burden, the llamass, known affectionately to the natives as the crazy. It didn't take Harry long to learn why this nickname applied. Llamass tended towards obstinacy, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and sported nasty tempers to support those qualities. He spent more of his first week traveling into the remoteness sitting on the gravel track than in the saddle.
A month and a half crawling around the Orgie valleys produced interesting but not astonishing facts; (1) the bureaucrats had described the farmer's earnings accurately; (2) the market forces that purchased and transported the product made little more than the farmers, about 3 millicredit/gram; and (3), the market forces tended to wear the uniforms of the local law enforcement agencies.
Traveling the port cities, Harry discovered the next step in the chain, the exporters, tended to make considerably more than the early stages. These folk earned 25 millicredits/gram and an awful lot of grams were leaving planet. Another fact Harry managed to uncover: the exporters tended to wear the uniforms of the planetary law enforcement agencies.
Getting this information off-planet was straightforward. Harry had access to the UniNet from his laptop, a capability the local authorities did nothing to inhibit. Getting the evidence to support the facts off planet was another matter. Evidence comes in the form of recorded conversation, copied documents, and other items whose essential nature was to be physical. Getting physical evidence off planet was not straightforward as the local law enforcement agencies were tied into UniPol and therefore aware of all the latest trends in the art of smuggling.
But Harry was nothing if not professional. A professional always outwits the authorities; it's a law with the stature of a Universal Constant. Harry got the story and the proof off planet and into the awareness of the Universe-at-large.
The Universe-at-large expressed the appropriate moral outrage and set about cleaning up After Cannes, a task made so much easier by the depth of detail Harry provided in his story. The authorities rooted out everyone involved in each step of the marketing and exporting stages, sentenced them all to life on Cannes, and assisted a new set of local authorities – individuals committed to a peaceful and law-abiding presence within the Universe-at-large - to take control of After Cannes. The Universe-at-large ignored the issue of the Orgie flower farmers delegating the responsibility for their well being to the new government.
Harry received the highest award a reporter can attain, the Noble Prize for Investigative Reporting While Not Employed By a Major News Agency, and retired from public life, contenting himself with a small estate outside the capitol city on After Cannes.
The new government of After Cannes established new law enforcement agencies working under a strict mandate to keep an eye on the Orgie flower farmers and their operations. The new law enforcement agencies attacked their mandate with a furious efficiency, an efficiency in large part indebted to the depth of detail Harry had provided in his expose.



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